Changeling
by Lena Carr
Summary: SUMMARY: “A tall stranger – dark haired and soaking wet – leapt across the threshold. “Where is she? Is she here?” he demanded, his face contorted and running with rain.”


TITLE: Changeling  
  
AUTHOR: hossgal  
  
RATING: PG - only because I don't hold with a G rating for a story with open brandishing of firearms.  
  
CLASSIFICATION: X or T - little bit of romance, little bit of angst  
  
SPOILERS: Up to and including Existence. Goes AU after that.  
  
FEEDBACK: tebosgal@msn.com I would really like to know ya'll's take on characterization. Also on the narrator's voice.  
  
KEYWORDS: M/S established relationship. Post colonization (sort of)  
  
SUMMARY: "A tall stranger - dark haired and soaking wet - leapt across the threshold. "Where is she? Is she here?" he demanded, his face contorted and running with rain."  
  
DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully, Doggett, Skinner, and The Lonegun Guys - none of them mine. The District of Columbia isn't mine either, but I don't feel as badly about that.  
  
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Queen Al - the fastest beta in the UK, for her (several) look-overs. All errors, etc, remain mine.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: At the end.  
  
Washington, D.C.  
  
As I crossed the street the rain thundered down, nearly drowning out the rising wail of sirens. I stopped at the corner and looked back down Proctor Avenue. Lights - alternating scarlet and blue - flashed against the wet building walls that lined the roadway. Traffic was light on the street - even for a late, rainy evening. For a long moment I stood in the slight shelter of a shop door and considered turning around - now - and going the long way home. Then I remembered the way the looters had stomped through the display china at the store on 5th, and ducked back out into the torrent. I had been an altar boy and general help at St Teresa Avila for ten years, and trusted with the key to the back door for three. The first time - the only time - I ever left the door unlocked was the worst possible night of the year. Had my mother been in D.C., I never could have convinced her to let me leave the apartment.  
  
Father Morris always told me my imagination drove me into more temptation than it ever extracted me. I pushed away the image of cars burning like bonfires downtown and ran faster. Four blocks of black pavement lay between the church door and me.  
  
The main door of St Teresa faced the worst of the rain. My hands slipped on the slick bronze handle. I tugged again, just to be sure. Locked. Leaving the main doors - which I really hadn't expected to be open - I ran down the side alley, past a single lit window shining like a dull rainbow through the falling rain.  
  
Behind the church, a wavering chain link fence enclosed a tiny yard where the pastor parked the church van and a perpetual dust devil stirred torn leaves and trash on drier days. The padlock and chain still held the rolling gate closed. The tight feeling in my gut began to relax. I slid through the gap, skirted a wide puddle, and threw myself up the steps to the rear door. The back door was pragmatic, metal and featureless, with a plain aluminum doorknob, but it was shut as firmly as the ornate double wide entryway around front.  
  
"Good." Thank you, God. Funny how sometimes you don't really mean the things you say, and sometimes you do.  
  
I turned to jump off the steps and misjudged the depth of the water. "Great!" Now I was really wet. Splashing out of the puddle, I reached the fence and paused with my hand on the mesh. The rain had slackened, and above the rush of droplets on quarter-inch lakes I could hear a diesel engine creep past the front of the church. White light reached down the alley and backlit a million raindrops as it swept across the trashcans and broken pallets. Then it was gone. I pressed my face against the cold wire and caught a glimpse of the spotlight trailing across Milton Bakery across the street. A black van - nothing more than a silhouette in the darkness - slid across the end of the alley and kept going.  
  
Now that I knew the door was locked, my post-curfew trip took on the familiar features of my Least Bright Ideas. This was not a good night to be out in the rain.  
  
Instead of a rectory, St Teresa housed its pastor in rooms above the church offices, in the rear of the church itself. I looked up at the second story windows. Both curtains glowed gold. Father Morris had to be in.  
  
I didn't think of it as sanctuary. I just wanted a chance to dry my shoes.  
  
I sloshed back around to the front of the church. Father Morris wouldn't open his own door after dark on a normal night. The Apocalypse itself, though, would not stop him from opening the church to a petitioner.  
  
Not that it was the end of the world tonight.  
  
I hammered on the side door with my fist, being careful not to get too enthusiastic. If Father Morris was asleep, I might be knocking for a while. I nearly fell down the steps when the door opened under the third blow. Father Morris stood framed by the flicker of candlelight. "Thomas! What you doing here?"  
  
A gust of wind threw rain around the corner and against us both. Father Morris raised a hand and stepped back as I pushed forward into the church. I must have seemed a clumsy fool as I came in, nearly knocking him over. My jacket sleeve caught on my wrist and I scattered rain over us both. "Dripping, Father. The whole world's soaking wet." I eyed Father Morris as I wiped the water off my face.  
  
He was in his formal blacks, and without the sweater he normally wore in the evenings. Dark brown eyes gazed back at me from a face worn with fifty years of life. Father Morris tended to look on the world - his parish, the morning sky, a new book, even me - with a mixture of tolerance and affection. His face did not habitually smile, but rarely frowned. His hair was still black as coal, but grown sparse across the top. Last week I had caught him standing with his hand to the small of his back, grimacing with the ache. I had known him for ten years, more than half my life, and was just beginning to realize that he would not be there for the rest of my days.  
  
Tonight, his face was firm and set. "You can't stay, Thomas."  
  
I stood there holding my jacket with one hand as it dripped on the tile floor. "But, .why?" A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. Everyone had always told me I was impudent and irrelevant and a pain in the ass - everyone except Father Morris. "Father? I know the calendar - there's nothing scheduled tonight." In the years since I had moved to D.C. as a fat little seven year old, I had never seen this man turn anyone away.  
  
I stared at him where he stood in the vestibule, his thin hair carefully combed, his clothes neatly pressed. Out in the nave, the greater area of the church, the lights were low. A single lamp lit the side chapel, strengthened by a scattering of candles dancing in front of the statue of the Virgin. Father Morris must have been cleaning - the baptismal fount had been pulled out and a wad of cloth lay on the rim. "What's going on? Did you see something in the news?"  
  
Father Morris rubbed his face. "Thomas, you need to go. Now."  
  
"Back out into that?" I gestured at the closed door and the torrent beyond. Father Morris dropped his hands and raised an eyebrow at me. I switched tactics. "Father, you can't tell me to go off and leave you here. There are crazy people out there! What if - what if someone decided to loot the church?"  
  
He didn't immediately call it a ridiculous notion. I stared at him, with my stomach beginning to tighten again.  
  
"Father, you can't tell me to leave you here alone, not with everything that's going on." I fought to put strength and mature reasoning into my voice. "What ever it is, I want to help." A tiny voice in my mind yammered sarcastically, reminding me that I'd already used up my chance to be helpful and mature today. I kept my eyes locked on Father Morris's face, praying, harder than I ever had in the pews, that I kept the guilt off my face.  
  
Father Morris blew out a long breath then shook his head. "Thomas. Leave now. I can't -"  
  
He cut off as someone began pounding on the main door. I jumped. Father Morris pushed past me and around the pew, striding swiftly up the aisle. As he approached the main entrance, the pounding changed tone, as if the person outside had stopped using their fist and began with a hammer. Belatedly, I ran after Father Morris.  
  
I caught him just as he threw the last bolt on the main door. The double doors burst open, driven by the rain and a madman. A tall stranger - dark haired and soaking wet - leapt across the threshold. His hands seized Father Morris by the throat.  
  
"Where is she? Is she here?" he demanded, his face contorted and running with rain.  
  
Father Morris dangled from the stranger's grip. His attacker towered over the priest, coat flapping in the gusting wind and rain. The stranger's voice rang from the ceiling, hoarse with desperation, as he demanded again, "Where is she?"  
  
"Leave him alone!" I leapt at the madman, trying to tear his hands away. One arm shoved me effortlessly. I stumbled back to my feet and leapt at him again as Father Morris snapped, "Thomas, no! Stand back!" I hesitated, and then froze, as I realized the open doorway was filled with the figures of other men.  
  
They flowed in, rain streaming off their coats and firearms held openly in their hands. I stood with my mouth gaping open as they brushed past me, five, eight, more - weapons pointing in all directions and eyes searching the corners of the chapel. A tall man with rain beading on his glasses strode with them, snapping orders as he came.  
  
"Get all the exits covered! And get everyone inside, now. I don't want any watchers getting the impression there's anything going on here."  
  
The speaker was a tall man, as tall as the first man but older and broader across the shoulders. His voice was cold and I could see the steel in his eyes, glinting behind his glasses. I took one step toward him, my fist half raised, intending.I don't know what I intended. I stopped when a lean man with a mass of tangled yellow hair stuck a pistol in my ear. I stopped. From the corner of my eye, I could see more figures in black moving along the inner walls of the sanctum.  
  
"ENOUGH." Father Morris hadn't raised his voice, or taken his eyes from the first stranger, but his voice overrode the rain and echoed from the rafters. I turned to look at him. Father Morris was dwarfed by the stranger and his rage, but seemed unaffected by the danger. "This vulgarism does not become you, Mr. Mulder. Nor your cause." The stranger seemed to pause, and eased his grip on Father Morris's shoulders. "Nor your purpose tonight." Now both the tall stranger and the steel man seemed abashed. When the man named Mulder spoke again, his voice was quieter but thick with emotion.  
  
"Is she here?"  
  
Before he answered, Father Morris lifted his hands and clasped the hands holding him upright. "Release the boy."  
  
The blond man with the gun didn't even glance at Father Morris. Grey eyes bored back into mine and the pressure of the cool metal against my ear grew no lighter. Father Morris snapped, "Release the boy!"  
  
A flicker then. Without turning his head, the man with the gun said, "Skinner?"  
  
"Let him go, Langley." From the corner of my eye I could see the burly man as he spoke. His eyes looked my way for an instant before he returned his attention to Father Morris and Mulder. Mulder's face was still and pale. Whatever demon had held him as he shook Father Morris had faded away. He kept his grip on Father Morris until the smaller man drew Mulder's hands away with his own. Father Morris let his soft and lined hands rest on Mulder's a moment, before he released Mulder and said, "No, I haven't seen them."  
  
There was a choked sound in the doorway. Both strangers turned and the steel man Skinner took a long stride to reach a woman who stood just inside the open door. She was a small woman, and she leaned on an equally small man, stocky and balding. Skinner drew her further inside and jerked his chin at the door, and one of the black-clad figures jumped to close it. Father Morris left Mulder and stepped forward to take the woman's hands.  
  
"Maggie, please," he said, his voice quiet and warm. "Don't worry, not yet. With the rain and the riots." Skinner tightened his arm around the woman's shoulders as she raised a hand to her mouth. "No, Maggie, don't give up on them yet."  
  
I looked from face to face, as Father Morris looked around at all of them. Tension sat heavy on all the faces, and a blank expression that seemed a mixture of exhaustion and grief. For a long moment, time stretched out. Around us, figures in black uniforms paced along the white walls and weaved in and out of the pews. A burst of radio noise crackled and faded, leaving only the sound of thick boots and the rain against the thick- glassed windows. Our tiny knot of strangers stood by the front door, purposeless and irresolute.  
  
Finally, I saw the corner of Father Morris's mouth twitch. Taking Maggie by the arm, he drew the woman to sit in one of the pews. As she sat, he bent and whispered something in her ear. Drops of moisture glinted in her dark hair as she nodded. Without a word, she knelt and folded her hands.  
  
Father Morris turned to the tall stranger. "Have you heard nothing from them, then?" He shook his head. Across the church, one of the dark figures called to another. Mulder's head came up and he stared across the nave, his eyes dark and grieving. "She - " His voice cracked. "She was supposed to have checked in at noon. And then we were late.I thought she would already be here."  
  
Father Morris carefully extended a hand towards the man. From the way he moved, I thought Father Morris expected him to jerk away. Mulder looked up and Father Morris gestured to the pew where the woman Maggie knelt. The man hesitated and then shook his head. Father Morris spoke so quietly that I could scarcely hear him. "I know. But for her mother's sake.just sit with her."  
  
Mulder groped his way to the pew and sat beside the dark haired woman.  
  
I thought everyone had forgotten me, until I rose unsteadily from the pew where I had collapsed. A slight movement behind me reminded me of the straggly haired man with horn-rimmed glasses. "I - I was just going to get a towel - for the floor," I said carefully to the empty air. Skinner looked across at us and nodded sharply. The hard edge of a gun barrel came away from my ear and I let out a shaky breath.  
  
The towels were where I had left them in the back room. Coming back with an armful, I passed the baptismal fount and almost picked up the stack of white cloth still lying on the edge. I thought better of it, though, and left them there.  
  
At the front door, I knelt by the wide puddle and began laying the clothes about. The multicolored terry cloth was soaked faster than I expected. I concentrated on mopping up the doorway and hoped for the best.  
  
All the while as I worked, I was aware of the people moving around the church. Black boots and dark trousers - mottled with some sort of camouflage pattern I had never seen before - walked steadily past me, regularly checking the windows and all the doors. I supposed they must have been soldiers, except the uniforms seemed more like police - no 'flack jackets,' just smooth heavy vests, and instead of metal helmets, they wore baseball caps or helmets with clear plastic visors. And soldiers - real soldiers - wouldn't have had women mixed in, would they? At least one of the cold-eyed warriors pacing past was not male.  
  
Occasionally the crackle of radios interrupted the soldiers' quiet conversations. The man Skinner made his way slowly around the walls. At the side door, just off the sacristy, he stopped and spoke with another man. As I glanced that way, Skinner took off his billed cap and run a hand over a bare scalp that reflected the gleaming candles. The man he spoke with gestured twice at a watch. Across the breath of the church, I saw the green flash of an illuminated dial. Skinner shook his head and waved a hand towards the main entry. The other man, anonymous in his dark clothes, shrugged and went to join the others at the side door. When Skinner returned to the back pews, he paused for a moment and set a hand on Mulder's shoulder. Skinner's voice was too quiet to overhear, but Mulder's voice cut like glass. "I just can't accept that I'll never see her again."  
  
Skinner's jaw knotted and he pressed his hand to the other man's shoulder and moved on. I looked away and went back to picking up the towels.  
  
Full of water, they dripped. I held the armful well away from me and headed straight for the back room. Mulder didn't even glance at me as I passed, his gaze lost in the distance.  
  
Then the side door slammed open, letting in the rumble of rainfall. One of the armed figures by the access way called out, "Director Skinner!" A second, tiny group poured into the church, lead by a woman with red hair that gleamed in the candlelight. She swept the church with her eyes, searching. "Mulder!"  
  
Skinner's head had snapped around, his eyes already focused on the newcomers, but it was the first stranger who shoved past me to meet her. I dropped half the towels and stood there, staring, as Mulder ran down the aisle. She met him halfway, returning an embrace fierce and desperate. In the tumult of voices, I couldn't hear anything they might have said to each other. After a moment, Mulder released her and stepped back, his hands still on her shoulders.  
  
Immediately, he was pushed aside by Maggie, who gathered the younger woman up in her arms. "Dana! Oh, thank God, you're all right!" Maggie was nearly weeping again. Another man pushed his way past them and, seizing Skinner by the arm, was delivering a report in abrupt, jarring tones. I felt the unease rise among the group rather than dissipate. Voices raised in greetings faded away to terse mutterings, barely covering the rattle of weapons being readied.  
  
"Mom, it's okay. We're fine, really." The red-haired woman's voice was muffled against Maggie's shoulder. "Just a little delay. You knew we had to come." It was only when the women finally released each other that I noticed the bundle in the new woman's arms. When the thin wail of an infant rose to overcome the rain, I turned to face Father Morris.  
  
"What is going on?"  
  
Father Morris smiled, his eyes laughing at me. "What always happens, Thomas. God's work." He stepped in close and pinned me with his eyes. "I wanted you to go."  
  
Skinner broke off his conversation long enough to order: "Nobody leaves. We can't risk detection. Not at this stage." Father Morris nodded, waving aside Skinner's words.  
  
"Thomas. Can you give me your word, that you will remain silent, and discuss what happens tonight with no one?" His eyes held mine, not with anger, but with a steady strength that seemed to go straight through me. After a moment, I nodded.  
  
"Then help me with the preparations." I nodded and turned to collect the towels. Father Morris bent to help, but stopped as the voices around Mulder, Maggie, and the woman she called Dana abruptly changed.  
  
"What do you mean, no time?" snapped the redhead. Fury was overlaying something else in her voice - shock? Betrayal? She seemed to direct most of her anger at Skinner, who had come up with the harsh-voiced newcomer at his elbow. Father Morris stepped up closer to the rising argument, but her gaze swept past him as though he were a stranger.  
  
The other newcomer tried to reason with her. "Agent Scully, you set up the schedule yourself. We got no options at this point -"  
  
"Don't tell me about options, Agent Doggett! The priorities haven't changed. And they won't change, until I say so!" Her grip tightened on the bundle in her arms. In protest, the child kicked and mewed. She soothed him absently, her attention still on the two men facing her. The soft weave of the baby's golden blanket was incongruous against her dark uniform. Skinner and Agent Doggett refused to drop their eyes.  
  
"If we had stuck to the timetable, Agent Scully, insteada makin' a detour past George Washington -" Now Agent Doggett was angry, too, and in response, spots of bright color rose on Dana Scully's cheeks. She opened her mouth, only to swallow whatever words had leapt to mind as Mulder raised a hand to her shoulder again.  
  
"Scully." He drew her and the baby away from the group. Those few steps brought them closer me, kneeling with a cold armful of wet towels. But I might as well have been on Mars for all the attention they paid me.  
  
"Scully, you know the dangers here as well as anyone. Don't blame Doggett for pointing out what everyone's thinking." She had begun to relax as Mulder spoke, but the last words brought her back straight and her head up.  
  
"Mulder, since when did you care about what 'everyone' was thinking? Or consider the risk, if it was something you cared about? Something you valued?" Now the betrayal was thick in her voice, and she all but jerked away from his hand on her arm.  
  
"The opportunity for detection goes up every minute we stand here arguing, Scully. Frohike and Langley warned us we wouldn't be able to move unnoticed more than a few hours. We can't -"  
  
"I can't keep going on like this, Mulder! We had a plan, Mulder, can't we for once stick to the plan?"  
  
"Scully, this isn't -" They both seemed to realize how loud they had become, and together dropped their voices.  
  
It didn't stop the animosity from coming through clearly as she hissed, "Isn't what? An excuse to postpone again a-a 'archaic ritual with no reasonable basis'? Isn't that it, Mulder? You can stretch your mind to accept the end of the world, but not this?"  
  
He stood there, looking at her, weariness and worry riding his shoulder like the weight of the world, and I remembered how frantic he had been. How convinced that she had come to some harm, no matter how he wished otherwise. She glared back at him, cradling the child, as if her voice, speaking this man's name had not rung from the rafters, painted with delight and relief.  
  
Another woman might have wept, I thought. Used tears and misery to gain what missteps threatened to deny her.  
  
Another man might have lied. Told her, of course, he agreed with her, believed her, believed whatever she wanted him to accept.  
  
Instead she stood there full of righteousness and fury, and he stepped close and wrapped both arms about her.  
  
"Not this, Scully. No, not this." His voice was a whisper. She made a choked sound and sagged against him. "Just you. Just you and him."  
  
They stood like this for a long time, until Father Morris cleared his throat. "Ms Scully? Dana? Shall we begin?"  
  
Mulder released her slowly. Her expression was tight and controlled as she stepped back from him. As she looked up at him, the light fell unevenly across her face. I couldn't read it, or his, but the relief was plain, even before Mulder spoke, his hands and eyes still resting on her.  
  
"Anytime you're ready, padre."  
  
Father Morris gestured at me, and I rose, leaving the towels in a crumpled heap. "This way, then," he said. The red-haired woman looked up from her child and smiled at us, her expression warming the building.  
  
I had helped with infant baptisms before, and it was a fortunate thing. I don't think I had two coherent thoughts for the next half an hour. I only remember flashes as the rite progressed. Guards stood at all the doors, weapons at the ready. Father Morris looked around the people actually gathered around the fount. "I have to ask that the participants in the ceremony set their guns aside." This caused a temporary halt to the proceedings as the party stepped aside to disgorge a very disquieting array of weapons. Even the mother of the baby handed the child to Maggie and turned away to put down two pistols. The strangest armament came from the little stocky man who had escorted Maggie. He kept pulling knives, guns and other things from his boots and pockets until Mulder hissed, "Frohike, enough! Lose the firearms and leave it!" The little man gave him a wounded look but laid down one more knife and stepped back up to the outer circle of the fount.  
  
The red-haired woman had reclaimed the child and stood next to the man Mulder, within the circle of his arm. Dana kept shifting her attention from the child in her arms to the man standing beside her, all but leaning against him.  
  
Father Morris turned to her. "Dana, what name have you given your child?"  
  
Her voice rose clean and clear. "Christopher William." Father Morris hesitated, then asked, "And his last name?" The woman hesitated, drew a shaky breath, and glanced up at the man at her side. He looked down at her, and then they both faced Father Morris and spoke as one.  
  
"Mulder -"  
  
"Scully-"  
  
Their eyes met again, and I could have lit every sanctuary candle off the sparks that flew between them. The woman's voice was low and choked as she repeated, through clenched teeth, "Mul-der." A smile brushed at the edges of the man's mouth, as he said again, "Scuulleeee." She held his eyes for a heartbeat, then dropped her gaze and muttered something I didn't catch, but that made the woman Maggie tighten her grip on the arm supporting the baby. Father Morris cleared his throat. The woman looked up at her partner again and said, "Fine. Christopher William Scully. And don't you think I'm going to forget this for a moment, Mulder." But she was smiling.  
  
Father Morris's voice directed her back to the task at hand. "What do you ask of God's Church for Christopher William?"  
  
The woman spoke quietly, as if she were keeping her voice from shaking. "Faith."  
  
"You have asked to have your child baptized. In doing so, you are accepting the responsibility of training him in the practice of faith. Do you understand what you are undertaking?"  
  
She nodded and said, "We do." Father Morris let his eyes rest on the man beside her, but Mulder's gaze remained lost on the face of the child.  
  
Father Morris hesitated, then asked for the names of the godparents.  
  
Maggie spoke quietly, declaring her guardianship, and after a moment, Skinner spoke as well, saying, "I do." Mulder half turned, meeting the steel man's eyes with a look of astonishment. Skinner nodded, and Mulder faced the fount again, his eyes going back to the child held in the arms of the woman who stood pressed against his side. She, in her turn, glanced from one of the men to the other, then looked back to Father Morris, and said, "Father, if we could request a second set of witnesses.given the unsettled times."  
  
Father Morris hesitated briefly and nodded. Scully glanced up at Mulder, who met her eyes and nodded before he lifted his gaze to look around the fount.  
  
"Guys, if I could ask you one more favor." There was a brief gasp, and the blond man who had held a gun on me caught the stocky man Frohike as he began to collapse. A man in a tidy brown beard protested, "Mulder, you can't be serious!"  
  
"I am, Byers." The red-haired woman had force in her voice that out- matched her size. "Please. He's going to need all the help he can get."  
  
The stocky man dragged himself back to his feet by a death grip on the marble fount. "For once in your life, Byers, take some initiative. Say yes." The tidy man stood for a moment with his mouth hanging open, then snapped it shut. "Yes." The yellow haired man nodded vigorously, "Sure, Scully, what ever you want."  
  
Father Morris sighed and said, "Now if -" He paused as a siren rose outside and continued past. As it faded away, he went on.  
  
"Almighty and ever-living God, you sent your only Son into the world to cast out the power of Satan, spirit of evil, and to rescue man from the kingdom of darkness. We pray for this child: set him free from original sin and send your Holy Spirit to dwell with him. We ask this through Christ our Lord."  
  
The heavy stink of the perfumed oil cut across the smell of the storm and mingling with the sharp scent of firearms. Father Morris left his hand on the child's head for another moment, then let it slip away. He handed the little bottle of amber oil back to me to set aside. Touching the water with his right hand, he said the blessing over the water, then drew his hand out and turned to the participants again.  
  
"You have come here to present this child."  
  
He paused in the midst of the instructions to parents and godparents to let another siren pass. Skinner half-turned to look at the guards by the main door. They must have made some sign of acknowledgement, for he stepped back into the ceremony.  
  
"...you must make it your constant care to bring William up in the practice of the faith." As Father Morris went on, I felt the tension rise on the other side of the ceramic basin. The woman Dana spoke clearly and distinctly, as did Maggie. Mulder, though, remained silent.  
  
".in which this child is about to be baptized." Father Morris paused and looked down at the child, then began the questions that established the rejection of Satan and the profession of faith.  
  
"Do you reject the glamour of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?"  
  
"Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary?"  
  
"Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, and life everlasting?"  
  
I could see Father Morris focus his attention on Mulder, who stood cupping his child's head and not voicing the responses.  
  
Not even for 'Do you believe in God?'  
  
Father Morris had stood with his hands upraised. Now he lowered them, and held them out over the water, as if in supplication. He asked, quietly, gently, "Is it your will that Christopher William should be baptized in the faith of the Church, which we have all professed with you?"  
  
Something in his voice brought Mulder's attention up, as though he had been pricked with a pin. He met Father Morris's eyes, nodded, and said with the rest of them, "It is."  
  
Father Morris held Mulder's eyes and nodded, as if sealing a bargain.  
  
Prosaically flipping his sleeves back, he reached across and took the child from his mother. I leaned across the fount, holding my open hands under the child as well, not touching but there in case of a slip.  
  
"I baptize you in the name of the Father -" Father Morris said, as he always did during baptisms - not intoning the words, but speaking in a voice of delighted announcement - and plunging the child down into the font. The baby cried for an instant when the cold water poured over his face. As Father Morris lifted the baby, I followed with my hands, ready for the next immersion.  
  
"- And of the Son -" down again, and up, and this time the child was hollering in indignation.  
  
"And of the Holy Spirit." One final descent into the pool, and the women gasped as the child came up literally kicking and screaming. I caught at little William involuntarily but unnecessarily - Father Morris's grip never slipped. We handed the child over the water again to the white cloth held open by his mother. When the child turned his head to me and relaxed his screwed up face to draw another breath, I jerked, caught for a moment by the impossibly dark eyes of the infant. Mulder jerked a glance my way when I gasped, but returned his eyes to the priest's hands, anointing William with the chrism. By the time Father Morris had finished, I was certain it had only been a trick of the light.  
  
Father Morris said, "Fox, Dana.place your hands on Christopher William as we say the final blessing." I noticed for the first time that neither of them wore rings, and that bothered me more than I thought it would. But when I looked at the man, his hand trembling as he gently laid it on his son's head, I could find no objection.  
  
". And may he keep you and hold you, all the days of your life. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."  
  
At the end, I stood by the altar and watched as the company gathered their weapons and their coats. Agent Doggett, his close-cropped hair glinting in the candlelight, stood speaking urgently to Skinner as Maggie held her daughter in a long embrace. The three "godfathers" huddled close to Mulder, peering at the bundle in his arms. I will swear I saw them passing a hipflask from hand to hand. Then the women broke their embrace as Skinner's voice filled the chapel again.  
  
"People, we have hostiles ten minutes out. I want this area cleared in five. Squad four, you're with me. Mulder, -" The other man was already gesturing impatiently. "We can move faster on our own." Scully moved to stand next to him, her face set and determined as well. But Skinner shook his head. "One last order, Agent Mulder. You will not go alone. Agent Doggett." At the sound of his name, Agent Doggett looked up, astonishment clear across his face. "Pick two agents. See if you can do better keeping track of the three of them" Skinner gestured at the little family "than you could of just one." Dana dropped her gaze, and shook her head when Mulder would have protested again.  
  
They turned to go, Scully taking the child back into her arms. She stopped and turned back to Father Morris. "Father, thank you. You know how much this means to me. To both of us." Father Morris raised an eyebrow. Mulder shrugged and said, almost apologetically, "The son of Thomas the Rhymer." Father Morris paused, and I could see him running the strange statement through his mind. It must have meant something to him, for suddenly he threw back his head and laughed out loud.  
  
"God go with you. And take care," Father Morris said, "Be wary, beneath the hollow hills." They nodded and hurried for the door, where three armed figures stood waiting. Maggie paused another moment to clasp the priest's hands and breathed a quiet, "Thank you." Then Skinner was drawing her away, with the godfathers falling in behind them. Within Skinner's five minutes, they were all gone, with only water on the floor to show anyone had ever been there.  
  
Father Morris gripped the back of the wooden pew and bowed his head. I thought he was praying, but when he raised his head, he was chuckling. "Thomas the Rhymer. Oh heavenly Lord, you do work in mysterious ways." He sobered. "Thomas, get your coat. It's time we were gone as well."  
  
I hesitated, thinking of my earlier fears, of looters stealing the gold crosses and defining the sanctuary. A cold chill moved through me as I thought of the weapons guarding the doors. Their concern had not been for looters.  
  
"Come, Thomas. You'll stay with me tonight." I nodded and began to move. "We'll need to check the heater. I have it on good authority that a cold snap is on the way."  
  
That was the day before yesterday - yesterday morning, really. By yesterday afternoon, after I made my way to my mother's apartment and went out again, the posters were up all over town. WANTED: in dark letters over a pair of grainy photos. The pictures they showed on the evening news were in color, but not much better. In fact, if the news anchor hadn't pointed out that the woman's hair was red; I might never have made the connection.  
  
I tried Father Morris first, but no one answered last night. Or this morning. Not his phone, not the main church line, not the door, even when I pounded on it until my wrist ached.  
  
It aches now, as I sit in the little interview room in the precinct house. So does my rear, from sitting in a plastic chair in this dirty space that stinks of old cigarettes.  
  
They got my number off Father Morris's machine. I can't remember whether that's supposed to be legal or not. Father Morris's gone missing, they say. They want to know where he was last seen, what were his last activities.  
  
For five hours now I've told them I don't know. I've been careful, not volunteering anything, not elaborating, just answering the questions. I'm so afraid I've said the wrong thing - that I've let something slip. The expression on their faces never changes. Neither do their voices. They are firm, but polite. Courteous, even. They've kept me here for hours, with my rear cramping from the plastic chair and the gaunt old man in the corner blowing smoke until my throat burned.  
  
So does my gut. My gut aches with the same awful feeling that I carried for twenty city blocks from my mother's apartment to St Teresa's. I had been entrusted with a responsibility, and I may have failed again. And for good or ill, it's already too late.  
  
  
  
Author's note:  
  
In R.A. MacAvoy's "Tea With the Black Dragon" Mayland Long tells a story of how the son of Thomas the Rhymer and the Fairie Queen was claimed for humanity by the act of baptism. (This has always been a method of identifying fairy (elven) changelings - and I couldn't figure out how to work in brewing tea in egg shells.) This story assumes Long's story is part of the canon. The baptismal rite actions and verbiage taken from the current practices of the Roman Catholic Church - but, for the sake of the story, Father Morris has amended the rite and its requirements more than permitted. This story began as completely AU over a year ago. I write so slow that the events of S8 have caught up with me. And it could have even happened post S5/pre FTF. Or anywhere in-between. 


End file.
